Switching from Linux to DFBSD (pkgsrc/packages)

From:

David Chanters <david.chanters@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Date:

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:46:27 +0000

Hi,
I've a couple of questions about DF, specifically managing
packages/pkgsrc and would welcome any input. Hopefully I've
understood this correctly, if not, do correct me. :) I haven't
switched from Linux yet, all of this is currently running in my VM.
But so far, it's great.
So, in no particular order:
1. What's the relationship between pkgin and pkgsrc? I find pkgin
*really* useful so far for a lot of things like OpenOffice, Firefox,
etc., which would have otherwise crippled my machine trying to compile
them. That said, I also have some applications compiled from pkgsrc.
Is it OK/acceptable to mix these two methods?
2. Is there an equivalent of "pkgin" for managing compiled programs
from pkgsrc? I can surely see a likely use case of someone compiled a
load of applications from pkgsrc, and wanting to peridocially
recompile them if there's been a version increase in the pkgsrc
repository upstream.
3. Also, is there any merit to having a tool which would check either
pkgin or pkgsrc and suggest using a binary or compiled-from-source
based on if the binary file present matches the one to compile from
pkgsrc? I appreciate compilation might necessitate a reason other
than "because I can", but it might be a nice convenience. Does such a
tool exist?
4. I note that most of the ownership under "/usr/{src,pkgsrc}" is
owned by group "wheel". That's fine, since my non-root user account
is in this group; I also like to compile things as non-root and then
"sudo bmake install". Is this a recommended way of working? Do I
just "chmod -R g+w /usr", or is there some other preferred way?
Thanks a lot for any advice you can give. I would just like to say
that I've been really impressed with the documentation on the DF wiki
-- it's been really helpful so far! But I can imagine some of the
above is on the wiki, in which case, do point me at it! :)
David